


tilt

by badacts



Series: terra firma [2]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Concussions, Hospitals, M/M, Panic Attacks, Post-Concussion Syndrome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-25
Updated: 2017-01-25
Packaged: 2018-09-19 20:44:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9459755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badacts/pseuds/badacts
Summary: All Andrew has ever needed is a reason, and a good sharp knife.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A sequel to my very first fic in this fandom, [touchstone](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6501142).

It’s purely force of habit.

Neil talks through his games afterward; post-match rundowns that he claims are better than therapy, as though he would know. He doesn’t expect responses – he’d call Kevin for that, as well as for the unique pleasure of being lectured for his apparently numerous mistakes. It’s just his process of computing, his tricky obsessive brain easing itself down.

Andrew listens. Pretending not to care is generally more work than either caring or pretending to, and has never been a trait of his. Caring or not about the ins and outs of Neil’s game doesn’t impact his ability to hold a phone to his ear and not fall asleep, anyway.

Expediency means Andrew is used to half-watching the games in question. Having knowledge of what Neil is talking about greatly increases his likelihood of staying awake. It’s habit that has him watching it even though he’s in Neil’s apartment with better things to do, and even though he’ll employ a different post-game calming technique than that tonight.

Habit. That’s why he’s watching when one of the Warrior backliners – Wilson, six-foot-six, two hundred pounds – smashes Neil into the court wall.

Unconsciousness and death look the same at a distance. It’s the dispassionate sole thought of a generally dispassionate man as Andrew observes Neil’s limp collapse onto the floor, a puppet in Exy gear with severed strings.

Onscreen, there’s chaos. Alvarez goes after Wilson, with the backing of most of the rest of the team. The doors burst open and the court is suddenly full of referees. One of them crouches by Neil’s head, too close. Then Dermott is there, making him move, taking his place.

The remote control is in Andrew’s hand – he turns the television off. It leaves him with silence and the harrowing awareness of his heartbeat in his chest.

The plastic complains in his grip. Because it would be stupid to not collect information himself and instead rely on the opinions of others, he switches the television back on. Andrew is not stupid.

They replay the collision in slow motion, seemingly for the purpose of showing just how hard Neil’s skull hit the wall. Then they cut to a black and gold figure on a stretcher being carried off of the court, Dermott hovering beside it. It’s impossible to see anything useful, and whoever is behind the cameras seems more interested in the aftermath of the brawl.

They’re going to be mopping blood off the floors tonight. Andrew powers the television off for the second time and lets the silence infect him.

Eidetic memory is a curse. He lives through a replay of a replay, feeling the cold creep of helplessness that starts at the base of his skull and trickles down his spine. He might stay that way, freezing solid, except his phone rings in his pocket and jolts him back to jerking life.

“This is Rafael Lozano,” says the man at the other end of the line. “I’m-”

“I know who you are,” Andrew interrupts him. It’s in his best interests to know the people responsible for Neil, not least because of this moment, right now.

Lozano doesn’t really pause. “Were you watching the game?”

“Yes.”

“Then you know what happened. I know you’re in town at the moment. Get a taxi and meet us at Northern General, okay? I’ll text you directions.”

He hangs up, cutting off the blur of voices behind him. His text comes through maybe a minute later – Andrew is already halfway down to his car by that point. He wouldn’t take a taxi if he were one-handed and bleeding out, and even then he would only consider it if his remaining fingers would slip off the steering wheel during the trip.

The trip across town takes too long – he’s aggressive, dangerous, like he's trying to prove everyone who has ever used the phrase _collateral damage_ in relation to him right. He drives with both hands on the wheel, a rarity, hypersensitive to the flickering of movement in the corner of each eye.

Once upon a time, every day of his life felt like this. It figures now would be the same.

Lozano is waiting for him when he arrives: Andrew doesn’t recognise him, but Lozano clearly knows Andrew’s face. That’s become unsurprising by now, though not necessarily welcome, but Andrew wouldn’t have committed to the game if he couldn’t bear that part of it.

The man falls in beside Andrew without pausing. “This way.”

Andrew follows him back behind the main desk and past a row of shrouded cubicles. It’s a Friday night, so most of them are occupied, but he doesn’t notice them beyond a vague recognition of their presence and the rush of noise-and-smell rolling over him. He’s half-insensate with all of it by the time Lozano leads him into the cubicle they’ve taken Neil to.

Andrew isn’t personally prone to panic attacks, but time has given him experience with Neil’s. He always looks like he’s drowning on dry land, blank-eyed with desperation and the certainty that he’s lost.

Andrew has a personal dislike of desperation.

Neil anchors himself with touch. He doesn’t like to be held down. There are hands on him that shouldn’t be, and the, “ _Let him go_ ,” that comes out of Andrew’s mouth rasps with a fury that’s always foreign until it isn’t.

Years later, and it still sounds like _get away from us._

It’s an order and a threat, and it’s obeyed like both. Neil falls back to the mattress under him, the fight going out of him the second the restraining hands are removed. It’s Andrew’s grip firm at the back of his neck that stops him descending further than that.

It’s neither expediency nor habit that has Andrew pulling Neil’s face into his chest and holding him there. Neil’s hands come up to Andrew’s hips, holding with all the strength his quaking fingers can muster.

“Breathe, Neil,” Andrew says. It emerges more quietly, without the breaking edge of a snarl. Neil obeys, though it shakes through him on the way in and again on the way out, like he’s cracking apart at the seams. It sounds like the first he’s taken in too long.

“Good job, Andrew,” Lozano says quietly from the door. Andrew hears him but doesn’t answer, concentrated on the steadying drags of Neil’s inhalations. “Has he had panic attacks before?”

“Yes.” Andrew’s voice is clipped, but no more than usual. The fine teeth of his control are dug in hard like a death grip.

“Often?”

“Not often.” It’s been years.

“Does he get them in response to particular stimuli?” That’s one of the doctors, frowning and out of Andrew’s reach. It’s a stupid way to put it.

“Yes, he has specific triggers,” Andrew replies. ‘Trigger’ has always seemed like an apt term to him. Not least because they turn him half into a weapon. Or because people think that’s what they do.

“We want to get him a CT scan done, but we don’t want to risk him panicking again. Can you get him to lie back?”

_Speaking of triggers_. Andrew knows necessity very, very well, but that doesn’t mean he likes it. Most especially when it comes to people other than himself. He turns his attention back to the sweat-damp head of curls nestled into his sweater, and has to wonder which grip is harder – Neil’s at Andrew’s sides, or Andrew’s about Neil’s nape.

Easy, he pushes Neil back and guides him down onto the bed without releasing that hold. Neil goes, and empties out a sigh once he’s settled that sounds familiar. It’s the same slow exhale as when he gets into bed at night, when it’s just the two of them and not a pack of doctors discussing the merits of sedation.

Neil’s hand rises, slow and a little wobbly, seeking. His eyes are closed, the shadow of his eyelashes on his cheeks just a shade lighter than a bruise. Andrew catches his fingers before they can veer off course, allowing himself a squeeze before he lowers Neil’s hand back to his side. That he doesn’t take a death grip is all down to control and vigorous practice.

He never learned gentleness like he did violence – he relearned it instead. Just like this, over Neil bruised and not as broken as he should be, he proved he’s more than what he was made into. Proved it to himself, in a way he has been since he was sixteen years old, and hasn't stopped yet.

The doctor from before appears on the other side of the bed, a syringe in hand. “Hi, Neil. This is just a light sedative, so you’ll feel a little prick and then you’ll get a bit sleepy. Just stay still for me.”

He takes Neil’s other arm, and Neil lets him. His eyes flutter half-open for a second, but they don’t look away from Andrew until they close again. It figures – a hand on his neck, and all the fight goes out of him. A glance, and he’s as safe as he ever gets.

“Good job,” Lozano repeats briskly, once Neil is drowsing and the medical team moves back in towards the bed. They give Andrew space, but there’s an unwritten invitation in that for him to back off and let them do their jobs in peace. “Andrew, I’ll get you to fill out some forms while these people look after Neil, okay?”

He’s being handled. He lets himself be, because Neil doesn’t need him right now, and doing something purely for his own benefit isn’t a habit of his. He nods, releases his grips, and goes.

 

* * *

 

Neil sleeps a long time after the scan. It gives Andrew an unfortunate amount of time to think.

He’s hardly prone to catastrophising, but there’s something in the fragile angles that make up Neil’s face, marked and familiar, against the backdrop of stimuli that make up the hospital that makes Andrew think: _what if._ It doesn’t last long, mostly because Neil has already put Andrew through most things imaginable, short of dying, and he’s here, breathing and unmistakeably not dead.

Andrew’s imagination isn’t very good, fortuitously.

It all transmutes to anger, instead. That’s familiar. It also makes sense, because Neil didn’t put himself in hospital. It’s a waste of emotion, and unlike him, but it’s there in the centre of his chest anyway like an ember he doesn’t care to put out.

By that point, it’s late – Lozano sweet-talked someone into letting Andrew stay, mostly because Neil can and likely will panic when he wakes again – and he catches a couple of restless hours sleep in the armchair by the window. He wakes to the crawl of daylight over the sill, still blue and hazy, and the pad of feet in the hall as someone does a round.

It’s unsurprising that one of the first things Neil tries to do when he wakes is suggest Andrew leave. He’s still dazed but no less insistent for it, bathed in brilliant light from the window.

He’s still awfully self-sacrificing, even now. It’s fucking irritating.

“I’m not going to go,” Andrew says.

Neil blinks at him, slow. Probably Andrew’s tone and all of its implications of Andrew’s opinion has gone straight over his head. “You sure?”

“I’m sure.” He is. He has a life halfway across the country, a team and an apartment and the various commitments intrinsic in being alive. It can wait, whether or not Neil is going to spend the entire weekend sleeping.

After that has been settled, Neil naps for a while, waking grumpy so the doctor can do the last of her tests. With that done, she discharges Neil into Andrew’s care. It’s an impressively straightforward procedure; one that means Neil is folded into the passenger seat of Andrew’s car in a surprisingly short space of time.

Neil’s phone won’t quit buzzing with messages once he switches it back on. Andrew listens to his refrain of _I’m fine_ the whole way back to the apartment, and thinks that Neil is predictable. If that’s hypocritical, then so be it.

           

* * *

 

It is not fine.

Two days later, Neil is still sick and lethargic and dizzy, so Andrew calls his team manager and organises time off under the clause in his contract concerning ‘family emergencies’. She’s brisk but understanding – he doesn’t have to explain. Everyone knows what happened to Neil Josten, and upper level management know what Neil is to him.

Neil is furious when he finds out. Fortuitously, he doesn’t have the energy to maintain it very long, and Andrew doesn’t care anyway.

“You’re meant to be playing this week,” is Neil’s last token protest.

Andrew isn’t inclined to lie to himself, and never has been. He cares about Exy, though it will never be the pure and simplistic devotion for the game that puts fire into Neil. It will, like most things at the intersection of him and wanting, always be complicated. Neil is a different kind of complicated, and Andrew wants him a hell of a lot more than he’s ever wanted a shut out, to win a game, the burn of the fight to get there.

There’s no choice to make. When he says as much – not in those precise words, but ones to that effect – Neil finally shuts the hell up.

It’s fortuitous, because talking makes Neil nauseous right now. Anything besides lying in silence in the dark seems to make him nauseous. Andrew, who has conscientiousness relearned through exposure to Neil’s particular brand of injury-prone – more precisely called _a death wish_ , perhaps – the same way he has gentleness, acts accordingly. He keeps the curtains drawn, keeps quiet, keeps saying _rest_ like it’s a slow spell for wellness and not sound medical advice.

In truth, he’s never seen Neil struck this low. Not even on his knees in Baltimore, back from the dead but only barely. He hardly eats, sleeps all day then drives Andrew mad with his attempts to stay still at night, and will not speak to anyone besides Andrew anymore.

It all looks a little too familiar. Sometimes life is a mirror, and Neil’s broken brain has apparently decided to ape Andrew’s after a little rattling inside his skull. It’s the fear underneath that chafes raw at the both of them, that seems to have bought Neil to a silent standstill.

The sixth night, Andrew slides between the sheets on his side without jolting the mattress, and instantly feels Neil’s attention orientate onto him in the dim light. He is resigning himself to another restless night – they’re both going to be nocturnal now – when Neil speaks.

“What if I can’t play anymore?” he asks the ceiling very quietly.

He doesn’t have to say _my life will be forfeit._ He doesn’t have to say _they’ll kill me._ He doesn’t even have to say _what the hell else can I do?_ It’s there in the bare silence between them, creeping across the mattress like blood.

Andrew isn’t Neil – he wouldn’t burn down the world, if it came to that. That’s because he believes in efficiency. Money and power and connections aside, Ichirou Moriyama is just a man: he’ll die just like anyone else.

All Andrew has ever needed is a reason, and a good sharp knife.

He says, “How fatalistic of you,” and Neil’s eyes flicker to him. His exhaustion and fear are bruised into his face, visible even in the bare light. “It’s been a week. Go to sleep.”

“I can’t,” he replies.

Andrew isn’t the type to reply _do you think I haven’t goddamn noticed that_ anyway, but Neil isn’t just stating a fact that the both of them know. It’s him asking for help, in his normal roundabout way.

“You don’t want to,” Andrew corrects. “So, what do you want to do instead?”

There are hard limits to what Neil can and can’t do right now, but that has never stopped him before. Andrew half-expects him to catapult out of bed with Andrew’s implied consent, even if it’s just to go as far as the couch in the living room. That isn’t what happens.

Neil’s still looking at him, eyes dark and unmistakeably present. “Kiss me.”

Andrew considers his options. Neil has post-concussion syndrome. He’s afraid. He’s looking for comfort, and he’s perfectly capable of thinking straight, and there are reasons to say no to him but they’re less important than the reasons to say yes. Like the fact that Andrew trusts him, and trusts him now to know his own limits.

Neil shuffles closer, so they’re breath to breath in tandem. “Yes or no?”

It’s been a long time since they’ve said those words out loud, in a moment like this. Rather than answer, Andrew closes the distance between them. Neil meets him in a way that’s not passive but a handing-over of everything, all of him poured into Andrew’s hold beginning with his mouth. An offering, one that appeals to the part of Andrew that wants to keep everything of Neil.

To Andrew, protection and devotion are one and the same. He isn’t sure if that’s the same for everyone, and doesn’t much care, but he knows that Neil sees those two things as the same just like he does. He kisses the wing of Neil’s cheekbone, over the burn scar beneath his eye, and then down the ridge of his jaw to where it meets his neck. They say:  _you’re mine, you’re mine, you’re mine_.

Andrew is the one to bring them together, and Neil breaks them apart. He doesn’t go far, bowing to press his brow to the hollow of Andrew’s collarbone. His breath plays warm there into Andrew’s shirt, quick until it starts to slow. It’s no surprise when his fingers find Andrew’s and curl into them. That's how they stay, in wishbone curves.

These days, Andrew can sleep like this. It turns out that Neil can, too.

 


End file.
